


Reunion

by haledamage



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: And More Fluff, F/M, Minor Violence, one (1) cuss word, poorly translated hylspeak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 03:16:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11865525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haledamage/pseuds/haledamage
Summary: Kai and Aloth reunite in the Deadfire in a role-reversal of their first meeting





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [palinopsia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/palinopsia/gifts).



> no beta, we die like men
> 
> for palinopsia, who challenged me to write my own version

Even after the sun had set, it was still sweltering hot in the northern islands of the Deadfire Archipelago. The air was thick enough to swim through, and night insects whined and buzzed in Aloth's ears as he picked his way though town. It made him oddly homesick for summer in the Cythwood; the climate was right here, but the smell of it was all wrong. Wrong flowers, wrong spices, wrong ocean.

_Ye pure could fin' a way tae bitch aboot anythin'._

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Iselmyr was right. He was frustrated, chasing dead ends and false leads for months now. The Deadfire wasn't so bad, he supposed. At least it wasn't the Dyrwood.

_Fye, as if ye wouldn't drop e'erythin' tae be back there wit yer lass._

_Our lass_ , he corrected, but it's petty. He knew Iselmyr missed Kai as fiercely as he did. He hadn't heard anything in weeks, not since receiving Edér's hastily written letter:

_She's alive. We don't know what happened. Caed Nua is gone, but Kiki's okay. I'll tell you more when I have it. --ET_

He hadn't heard so much as a rumor since, and with no luck finding the Leaden Key sect he knew was here, he had way too much time to spend worrying.

Aloth rounded a corner toward the inn and froze in his tracks; there was a crowd of kith outside the door, and he caught a flash of firelight on drawn steel. He'd walked right into the middle of a fight.

A huge folk man, skin red with too much sun and blond hair coarse and green from saltwater, loomed over a figure Aloth couldn't quite see from his vantage point. He drew his rapier, keeping it close to his thigh so it wouldn't catch the light, and side-stepped around the group to get a better visual angle.

The big man twitched an arm at his unseen adversary, clearly brandishing a knife. His voice was thick and slurred with anger and drink, "All I want, Aedyran, is an apology."

"All you want," said a familiar voice, Aedyre accent thick with rage, "is the loving embrace of your sister."

Aloth felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him, and was moving forward and into the gathered kith before he had a chance to think about it. _That's mah line!_ Iselmyr's laugh rang through his head and he let her step to the fore, her speed and strength filling his limbs.

Iselmyr touched the point of her sword to the jugular of the blond pirate lad, her grin wild. "Ye harm sae much as a freckle 'n' I'll pull yer knob oot thro' yer eyes."

_How uncouth_ , Aloth admonished, but she ignored him. Instead, her attention was on the big man as he took a step backward with hands up, and the tiny gasp she heard from the array of red curls she could now see over his shoulder. "Ye a'richt, Kiki?"

"Never better, darling," said Kai, and at the sound of her voice Aloth and Iselmyr shared a wave of intense relief that threatened to bring them to their knees. "You do have quite a sense for timing."

"You killed my cousin, Aedyran witch, and I'll see you paid in kind!" Even with Iselmyr's sharp blade and sharper, eager smile pointed at him, the blonde pirate still only had eyes for Kai.

"Perhaps if members of your family stopped attacking me, dear, they'd have a longer life expectancy," Kai said coldly, and she took a step back and finally came into full view.

Her hair whipped behind her like a banner on the ocean breeze, longer than they remembered it. Her bare right arm bore a web of scars, healed but still pink and new, that flowed from her wrist up, over her shoulder and up her neck, stopping just below her jaw. _A souvenir fae Caed Nua_ , Iselmyr thought, and felt Aloth's agreement. He also agreed, as Kai finally looked their way and a smile lit her eyes, that she was still the most beautiful woman either of them had ever seen.

Iselmyr heard movement behind her, and turned just a touch too slowly to be able to avoid the axe swinging for her head. Kai shouted a quick word and the axe stopped little more than a finger's width away, its owner frozen in place as ice crystals crawled up the weapon's handle, crackling in the balmy night air.

Things went very quickly after that as the pirates screamed and rushed forward. Iselmyr dispatched the blonde with barely an effort, sword meeting no resistance from flesh or bone, and she lifted her other arm toward an aumaua woman who Aloth stopped cold with a barrage of conjured missiles.

Only in the aftermath did she realize that Kai wasn't the only friendly face here. Two others stood with them among nearly a dozen dead pirates. One of them was a tiny elven woman with an unkempt mop of black curls and a wicked, dark curved blade in each hand. Her green eyes were hostile, watching as Iselmyr picked her way across the bodies toward Kai, but the color was familiar, and that combined with the spray of freckles across her cheeks and shoulders left little doubt to who she must be. As for the other…

"Edér?" Aloth asked, shocked, as Iselmyr stepped back again and let him retake full control of his body.

The Mayor of Dyrford looked up from cleaning his sabre on the shirt of a dead pirate and barked a laugh. "Well, look who it is! Hope these weren't friends of yours."

Aloth flipped the big blonde pirate over so he could see his face. No one he recognized. He sneered, "Even if they had been, that would have changed the moment he threatened Kai."

She was at his side, then, and her smile was the best thing he'd seen in years. "Good to see you too, darling," she said softly, and then she was hugging him and he let himself relax his guard a moment and hold her.

"Okay," said the dark-haired girl loudly, "what the fuck is goin' on?"

"Ari, meet Aloth Corfiser," Kai said without lifting her head from his shoulder. "Aloth, this is Ariana Cirdani, my younger sister. Known around here as The Black Blade."

"Your sister is a pirate." He remembered her mentioning a sister in the Deadfire, but nothing beyond that.

"My sister is a _successful_ pirate," Kai said proudly, "and one who does not believe in charter discounts even for immediate family, apparently."

"Oh please," Ari's accent was unique, a mix of Aedyr and Deadfire and a touch of Hylspeak, "tell me ye didn' make me sail ta the Dyrwood and back just so ye could find yer boyfriend."

"Ah, if only it were that simple." Kai pulled away enough to look up at Aloth. He reached out and smoothed away the worry in her brow. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch as she continued, "I should have known you'd be here. I ran into some old friends of ours the moment we stepped off the boat. This one's cousin, I imagine." She nudged the lead pirate with the toe of her boot.

Edér threw at small cloth bag toward him and Iselmyr caught it without so much as a glance. Aloth opened the bag and pulled out a necklace, one of several identical ones within the bag. It bore a black medallion, engraved in silver with a stylized key.

Iselmyr laughed in his head again. _Three months we're 'ere huntin' 'n' she finds thaim soon as she lands. Gods' blood, bit ah dae love that lass_.

All he said aloud, though, was "interesting" as he dropped the pendant back into its bag, but the coy smile on Kai's face said she knew exactly what he's thinking. _Some things never change._ He laced his fingers with hers and said, "I suspect we have a lot to talk about."

"Maybe in the mornin'," said Ari with an eyeroll, "if I hafty watch ye stare at each other all night I'll lose me dinner. C'mon, farmboy, buy a gal a drink." Edér clapped Aloth on the shoulder and followed without another word.

Once they were gone, Aloth pulled Kai to him again and they held each other for a while, quiet except for the night insects. He found himself idly tracing the new scars down the length of her arm. _I should have been there_ , he wanted to say, but he bit his lip to stop it from escaping.

She heard it anyway, or at least still knew him well enough to know his thoughts. "If you'd been there, you'd be dead. No one made it out but me. And Steward, such as she is. Her head's in Edér pack."

He chuckled. "Of course it is. And… Arabella and Moire?" He knew Kai's older sister and her wife had been staying in the keep for a while.

"They left after Inestu. They were safely back in their own estate when the walls came down."

"Good," Aloth said, though it seemed insufficient. "We should probably head inside before someone else comes by and starts asking questions."

"One more thing first," Kai said, and then she was kissing him and it was then, finally, that he let himself believe this was real. That somehow after years and miles apart, she was here and it was as easy, as effortless as if no time had passed at all.

"I missed you," Kai, Aloth, and Iselmyr all said, as soon as they parted to breathe.

Kai laughed and kissed him again. "Let's go inside. You'll have to pay for drinks, though, I'm afraid. My sister seems to have stolen my coinpurse."

Aloth's laughter carried in the night air as they stepped into the inn together.

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title -- "How to Use He, She, and They Pronouns For a Single Character: The Aloth and Iselmyr Story"


End file.
